Part 5 (2/2)
Mine operators find it a valuable resource. As props it is cheap, substantial, and convenient in many parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Montana. A large proportion of this timber which is cut for mining purposes has been standing dead from fire injury many years, and is thoroughly seasoned and very light. It is in excellent condition for receiving preservative treatment.
Sawmills do not list lodgepole pine separately in reports of lumber cut, and it is impossible to determine what the annual supply from the species is. It is well known that the quant.i.ty made into lumber in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho is large. Its chief market is among the newly established agricultural communities in those states.
They use it for fruit and vegetable s.h.i.+pping boxes, fencing plank, pickets, and plastering lath.
Railroads buy half a million lodgepole pine crossties yearly. When creosoted, they resist decay many years. Lodgepole pine has been a tie material since the first railroads entered the region, and while by no means the best, it promises to fill a much more important place in the future than in the past. It is an ideal fence post material as far as size and form are concerned, and with preservative treatment it is bound to attain a high place. It is claimed that treated posts will last twenty years, and that puts them on a par with the cedars.
In Colorado and Wyoming much lodgepole was formerly burned for charcoal to supply the furnaces which smelted ore and the blacksmith shops of the region. This is done now less than formerly, since railroad building has made coal and c.o.ke accessible.
In one respect, lodgepole pine is to the western mountains what loblolly pine is to the flat country of the south Atlantic and other southern states. It is aggressive, and takes possession of vacant ground.
Although the wood is not as valuable as loblolly, it is useful, and has an important place to fill in the western country's development. Its greatest drawback is its exceedingly slow growth. A hundred years is a long time to wait for trees of pole size. Two crops of loblolly sawlogs can be harvested in that time. However, the land on which the lodgepole grows is fit only for timber, and the acreage is so vast that there is enough to grow supplies, even with the wait of a century or two for harvest. The stand has increased enormously within historic time, the same as loblolly, and for a similar reason. Men cleared land in the East, and loblolly took possession; fires destroyed western forests of other species and lodgepole seized and held the burned tracts.
If fires cease among the western mountains, as will probably be the case under more efficient methods of patrol, and with stricter enforcement of laws against starting fires, the spread of lodgepole pine will come to a standstill, and existing forests will grow old without much extension of their borders.
JEFFREY PINE (_Pinus jeffreyi_) is often cla.s.sed as western yellow pine, both in the forest and at the mill. Its range extends from southern Oregon to Lower California, a distance of 1,000 miles, and its width east and west varies from twenty to one hundred and fifty miles. It is a mountain tree and generally occupies elevations above the western yellow pine. In the North its range reaches 3,600 feet above sea level; in the extreme South it is 10,000 feet. The darker and more deeply-furrowed bark of the Jeffrey pine is the usual character by which lumbermen distinguish it from the western yellow pine. It is known under several names, most of them relating to the tree's appearance, such as black pine, redbark pine, blackbark pine, sapwood pine, and bull pine. It reaches the same size as the western yellow pine, though the average is a little smaller. The leaves are from four to nine inches long, and fall in eight or nine years. The cones are large, and armed with slender, curved spines. The seeds are too heavy to fly far, their wing area being small. It is a vigorous tree, and in some regions it forms good forests.
Some botanists have considered the Jeffrey pine a variety of the western yellow pine.
GRAY PINE (_Pinus sabiniana_), called also Digger pine because the Digger Indians formerly collected the seeds, which are as large as peanuts, to help eke out a living, is confined to California, and grows in a belt on the foothills surrounding the San Joaquin and Sacramento valleys. Its cones are large and armed with hooked spines. When green, the largest cones weigh three or four pounds.
Leaves are from eight to twelve inches long, in cl.u.s.ters of two and three, and fall the third and fourth years. The wood is remarkable for the quickness of its decay in damp situations. It lasts one or two years as fence posts. A mature gray pine is from fifty to seventy feet high, and eighteen to thirty inches in diameter. Some trees are much larger. It is of considerable importance, but is not in the same cla.s.s as western yellow and sugar pine. The wood is light, soft, rather strong, brittle. The annual rings are generally wide, indicating rapid growth. Very old gray pines are not known. An age of 185 years seems to be the highest on record. The wood is resinous, and it has helped in a small way to supply the Pacific coast markets with high-grade turpentine, distilled from roots. It yields resin when boxed like the southern longleaf pine. There are two flowing seasons. One is very early, and closes when the weather becomes hot; the other is in full current by the middle of August.
It maintains life among the California foothills during the long rainless seasons, on ground so dry that semi-desert chaparral sometimes succ.u.mbs; but it is able to make the most of favorable conditions, and it grows rapidly under the slightest encouragement.
The seedlings are more numerous now than formerly, which is attributed to decrease of forest fires. The tree has enemies which generally attack it in youth. Two fungi, _Peridermium harknessi_, and _Daedalia vorax_, destroy the young tree's leader or topmost shoot, causing the development of a short trunk. The latter fungus is the same or is closely related to that which tunnels the trunk of incense cedar and produces pecky cypress.
Gray pine has been cut to some extent for lumber, but its princ.i.p.al uses have been as fuel and mine timbers. Many quartz mines have been located in the region where the tree grows; and the engines which pumped the shafts and raised and crushed the ore were often heated with this pine. Thousands of acres of hillsides in the vicinity of mines were stripped of it, and it went to the engine house ricks in wagons, on sleds, and on the backs of burros. In two respects it is an economical fuel for remote mines: it is light in weight, and gives more heat than an equal quant.i.ty of the oak that is a.s.sociated with it.
CHIHUAHUA PINE (_Pinus chihuahuana_) is not abundant, but it exists in small commercial quant.i.ties in southwestern New Mexico and southern Arizona. Trees are from fifty to eighty feet high, and from fifteen to twenty inches in diameter. The wood is medium light, soft, rather strong, brittle, narrow ringed and compact. The resin pa.s.sages are few, large, and conspicuous; color, clear light orange, the thick sapwood lighter. The tree reaches best development at alt.i.tudes of from 5,000 to 7,000 feet. When the wood is used, it serves the same purposes as western yellow pine; but the small size of the tree makes lumber of large size impossible. The leaves are in cl.u.s.ters of three, and fall the fourth year. The cones have long stalks and are from one and a half to two inches long.
[Ill.u.s.tration]
TAMARACK
[Ill.u.s.tration: TAMARACK]
TAMARACK
(_Larix Laricina_)
There are three species of tamarack or larch in the United States, and probably a fourth is confined to Alaska. One has its range in the northeastern states, extending south to West Virginia and northwestward to Alaska. Two are found in the northwestern states. Other species are native of the eastern hemisphere, and some of them have been planted to some extent in this country. A species of Europe is of much importance in that country. The tamaracks lose their leaves in the fall and the branches are bare during the winter. The name tamarack or larch should be applied only to trees of the genus _larix_. This rule is not observed in some parts of the West where the n.o.ble fir (_Abies n.o.bilis_) is occasionally called larch by lumbermen. It is not ent.i.tled to that name, and confusion results from such use.
The larches are easily identified. They have needle leaves like those of pines and firs, but they are differently arranged. They are produced in little brush-like bundles, from twelve to forty leaves in each, on all the shoots, except the leaders. On these the leaves occur singly. The little brushes are so conspicuous, and so characteristic of this genus, including all its species, that there should be little difficulty in identifying the larches when the leaves are on. In winter, when the branches are bare, there are other easy marks of identification.
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